1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of print processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
A technique called “Point & Print” is known. In this technique, a shared printer of a server personal computer (server PC) is designated from a client personal computer (client PC), and thus, a printer driver is copied and installed in the client PC from the server PC. As a result, the client PC does not need to individually install the printer driver.
Further, a technique is known in which, bidirectional communication is carried out between a printer driver and a printer, and thereby, the printer driver obtains apparatus information of the printer.
FIG. 1 illustrates one example of bidirectional communication carried out at a time of carrying out the Point & Print technology.
In FIG. 1, a client PC 1 is placed in a network #1, a server PC 2 is placed in a network #2 and a printer 3 is placed in a network #3. Further, in this case, for an administrative reason, the client PC 1 in the network #1 and the printer 3 in the network #3 are not allowed to carry out communication directly therebetween. That is, in this case, direct communication between the client PC 1 in the network #1 and the printer 3 in the network #3 is restricted.
In such an environment, from the client PC 1 in the network #1, only the server PC 2 in the network #2 can be seen, and it is not possible to know the existence of the printer 3 in the network #3.
Therefore, the client PC 1 cannot obtain apparatus information of the printer 3 by directly carrying out bidirectional communication with the printer 3 using a protocol such as a simple network management protocol (SNMP).
Further, a technique is known (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2006-079138, for example), by which, the client PC 1 carries out bidirectional communication with the printer 3 via the server PC 2. However, bidirectional communication cannot be carried out without depending on the connection type (TCP/IP ports, USB ports, WSD ports or the like) between the server PC 2 and the printer 3.
That is, according to bidirectional communication in the related art, the client PC 1 cannot directly obtain apparatus information of the printer 3, and also, cannot obtain apparatus information of the printer 3 without depending on the connection type, in a case where direct communication between the client PC 1 and the printer 3 is restricted in a Point & Print environment.
FIG. 2 shows another example of bidirectional communication carried out at a time of carrying out the Point & Print technology. In this case, the client PC 1 in the network #1 and the printer 3 in the network #3 are allowed to directly carry out communication with one another.
In this case, when bidirectional communication is carried out between the client PC 1 and the printer 3 via the server PC 2, a network load is applied to the server PC 2 accordingly. Therefore, it is preferable that the client PC 1 and the printer 3 carry out bidirectional communication directly.
However, in many cases, for an administrative reason, a setting is made to the client PC 1 such that communication is to be carried out via the server PC 2. A user of the client PC 1 cannot change the setting if the user does not have the corresponding authority, and thus, it may be difficult to directly carry out bidirectional communication between the client PC 1 and the printer 3.